Nutrition
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The association between caffeine consumption and mortality in different weight statuses is unclear. This study aimed to explore the effects of caffeine consumption on mortality in different weight statuses. ⋯ The present study suggests that moderate caffeine intake is associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality in a large study of U.S. adults, especially among those who are overweight. Overweight individuals were more likely to benefit from moderate caffeine intake.
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This study investigated the nutritional quality and adequacy of school meals served to school-age children and adolescents. ⋯ Despite their benefit to alleviate hunger in schools, school meals contributed suboptimal energy and nutrients to deprived school-age children and adolescents. Inclusion of animal products, fruits, and vegetables may improve energy and nutritional values.
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Review
Assessment of body composition: Intrinsic methodological limitations and statistical pitfalls.
Evaluation of body composition (BC) is crucial for an adequate assessment of nutritional status and its alterations, to ensure the optimal tailoring of nutritional therapies during several pathologic conditions. The need for feasible and reliable methods for BC measurement, which could be applied either in healthcare across the lifespan as well as in clinical research and epidemiologic studies, has led to the development of various techniques. Unfortunately, they have not always produced equivalent results due to the fact that they are based on completely different principles or suffer intrinsic biases related to specific conditions. ⋯ Finally, the need to compare the data obtained by new techniques to a reference standard has produced a further bias, due to a systematic misinterpretation of the statistical methods in the attempt to correlate the various techniques. In this context, the most used statistical methods for the comparison between different techniques have been Pearson's correlation test, the more recent intraclass correlation coefficient, Lin's concordance correlation coefficient method, and the Bland-Altman analysis. The aim of this review was to offer a summary of the methods that are mostly used in clinical practice to measure BC with the intent to give appropriate suggestions when statistical methods are used to interpret data, and underline pitfalls and limitations.